Chapter 1 RESPAWN

The grain store was already on fire when Zaren arrived.

He heard it before he saw the flames, the sharp crack of old timber surrendering, that strange way fire sounds almost joyful when it finds something dry to eat. He rounded the corner, sprinting, then skidded to a halt in the dirt. Three of them stood there, the Immortals. Right in the road, like they owned the sky and everything under it. And honestly? In all the ways that mattered here, they did.

They were laughing. One was taller than the others, wearing armor that snagged the firelight in flashes of blue so cold they almost looked smug. He had his hands up like he was conducting an orchestra, except the music was destruction. The other two filmed it. Zaren had seen enough immortals in his life to know what that meant, somewhere far away, someone was watching Millhaven burn for their own entertainment, probably munching snacks while fields went up in smoke.

“Hey.” Zaren’s voice snapped out, sharper than he meant. “Hey.”

The tall one spun around. Above his head, Zaren could see his username, crisp and white. KRONOS. Level 847. Guild: Kronos Eternal. The numbers didn’t mean much to Zaren, but the reality did, this guy could wipe out Millhaven before breakfast and be fully restored before lunch.

KRONOS looked at him like furniture had suddenly started talking. “Quest objective complete,” he said, not to Zaren, but to someone invisible, someone back in that other world. “Grain storage destroyed, that should trigger the famine event.” He glanced at Zaren, not really seeing him. “Man, the NPC reactions in this patch are wild.”

Zaren clenched his jaw. “That grain feeds four hundred people through winter.”

KRONOS smiled. Not in a cruel way, almost bored, as if Zaren was a bit of trivia he’d forget about before dinner. Then he turned away, busy with whatever goal was next on his list.

That was when old Drev showed up, coming from the other side. Drev was sixty-three, hands worn thick from decades of digging and planting, eyes sharp as ever. As Zaren’s stomach dropped, he saw Drev had a pitchfork. Drev had seen the smoke and just ran toward it, like someone who built something does, reflexively defending what matters.

“Get away from there,” Drev said, steady as always. “That store took three harvests to fill. You leave it right now.”

KRONOS didn’t bother to fully turn. He flicked his hand, barely a gesture, the same way you shoo off a fly. The ability left his hand , nothing to him, barely a thought. Zaren saw it in the interface, a little spray of damage numbers popping into the air.

Drev sat down in the dirt. Then he slumped sideways.

Zaren moved before Drev even hit the ground. He crossed the road, got his arms under Drev, and felt the wrongness, the final, definite sag of a body that was simply finished. Not hurt, not stunned, finished. The light in Drev’s eyes faded away like a candle, nothing dramatic, nothing fighting, just quietly fading.

“Hey, that counted as a PvE kill, right?” one of the filming immortals called with forced excitement. “I need the civilian casualty achievement.”

“It should pop any second,” KRONOS replied.

Drev gripped Zaren’s arm. He wasn’t watching KRONOS, or the fire, or any of the chaos. Drev looked at Zaren alone, the way you look at someone you trust to witness the end.

“Cold,” Drev said. And then he was gone.

Zaren stayed in place, kneeling in the dirt, still holding Drev’s hand. The fire snapped and spat behind him. Somewhere in his interface, a little notification flickered, then disappeared.

Civilian NPC Drev Eliminated. Loot: 3 copper, worn work gloves.

Three copper.

That’s what sixty-three years of someone’s life counted for in their world.

KRONOS was already strolling away, flipping through his interface, finished with this moment before it was even truly over. The other two followed. One almost stepped on Drev, but then he corrected his path without looking down.

Zaren put Drev’s hand gently to the ground and stood up. The fire worked through the last wall of the grain store, and people were coming, voices, footsteps and a small town waking up to disaster. In an hour, the street would swell with survivors trying to piece it all together. In a day, someone would ask how anyone would survive the winter. In a week, quietly, someone would suggest maybe Millhaven has too many mouths, and not enough left to feed them.

KRONOS would be gone, off to some other place, probably wouldn’t even remember Millhaven’s name.

Zaren watched them disappear around the corner. His hands shook, but not from fear, it wasn’t fear anymore. It was something older, deeper, and more poisonous.

He looked at Drev one last time.

Then he raised his eyes toward the interface at the edge of his vision. The system that shouldn’t even exist in his head. That window into their world which had cracked open three weeks ago and never closed.

He’d been careful with it. Going steady and still learning as he went. But now? He was done being careful.